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Message: [QUOTE="jake14mw, post: 5193538, member: 12344"] It's a difficult question. Firstly, I completely agree with you in the general concept of teaching young players skills rather than remembering plays. That's the way I did it. I was lucky enough to have kids with enough talent so that they could still look competent and win some games. But, you do need to accept that people that don't understand basketball think that plays are some kind of magic. That's their reality and you do have to deal with that. One thing you have to ask yourself is what is the main goal? Is winning more the main goal? To some parents/administrators it is, and it's their sole measure of your coaching ability, even though your coaching skills don't mean nearly as much as the talent of the kids. When I coached, my main goals were to give the kids a good experience, teach them as much as I could about basketball. If you have 16 kids that have to play a sport, probably 10 of them have no real aspirations of being a great basketball player, and maybe 4 will play in high school past freshman year? One thing I always did think about as I was coaching was that for the few with a basketball future, I wanted to make sure I did everything that I could to make sure they improved as much as possible in their time with me. I took that seriously. I also tried to balance that with the fact that many of them were just there to have fun and be with their friends. There is a lot involved with coaching. I don't think any player gets better by learning how to run "Carolina" or whatever other play you come up with, but it does make you look like a better coach for those who don't know any better. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach